AMD will conclude driver updates for pre-Evergreen, or pre-Radeon HD 5000 (that's HD 2000, HD 3000, and HD 4000) series GPUs, starting this summer. The change could take effect with Catalyst 12.7 (around July). Users of these older GPUs can use the (then) latest driver (Catalyst 12.6) to run their older DirectX 10/10.1 graphics cards. The elimination of pre-Evergreen GPUs could also slim down the driver package a bit, in terms of file-size.

AMD needs to get their act together with drivers. Their driver is 161MB, and only goes back to the HD2000 series. They drop support for cards that were flagship cards just 2.5 years ago to "shave a few MB off the driver". Come on, nVidia is still releasing drivers that support all the way back to the 6000 series cards, and their driver file is only 159MB.

If you are going to phase out support at least do it grandually, phase out one generation at a time as you introduce a new generation. Don't just axe 3 generations of cards in one swipe, especially not when they were selling as flagship cards just 2.5 years ago. That is just way too short of a life span, I would expect at least 3 year of support with new drivers out of a card. At least long enough to get through the (common) warranty period...

Absolute silence without compromising performance is my only benchmark score.

It would be nice if they'd drop support after they released at least 1 WHQL driver for Windows 8 for these older series. So they don't screw old users over ability to upgrade to Windows 8 properly.
I totally hate it when company drops driver support just before the release of new OS.
On one hand that saves them the work but on the other hand it screws users big time as well.

With 1 proper driver, they at least get proper support, even if it's a bit buggy here and there. It's usually better than no support at all.

It would be nice if they'd drop support after they released at least 1 WHQL driver for Windows 8 for these older series. So they don't screw old users over ability to upgrade to Windows 8 properly.
I totally hate it when company drops driver support just before the release of new OS.
On one hand that saves them the work but on the other hand it screws users big time as well.

With 1 proper driver, they at least get proper support, even if it's a bit buggy here and there. It's usually better than no support at all.

Unfortunately with the newer cards heat and sound are problems. Well... for someone who likes a silent computer anyway.

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Actually a 4x more powerful HD6950 that i own now is far more silent than HD4850 that i used to have. And reference HD5850 was more silent as well and it was still 2x faster. It was a fine card, can't deny that but with reference cooler it was very loud. And hot. But it was a single slot...

Actually a 4x more powerful HD6950 that i own now is far more silent than HD4850 that i used to have. And reference HD5850 was more silent as well and it was still 2x faster. It was a fine card, can't deny that but with reference cooler it was very loud. And hot. But it was a single slot...

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Everyday you compromise I guess.

I had a Powercolor 4850 with a cooler so silent I had to look to see if my hard drive activity light blinked to check if my computer was on when I came into my room so I knew that all I had to do was turn my monitor on. lol

I had a Powercolor 4850 with a cooler so silent I had to look to see if my hard drive activity light blinked to check if my computer was on when I came into my room so I knew that all I had to do was turn my monitor on. lol

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You want quiet? A 580/570 DCII is insane. I had to take the side of my PC off to make sure the fans were running. Look at W1zz's review.